


An Immovable Object in Motion

by Say_that



Series: The Locked Tomb and All Its Souls [1]
Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir, The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, Kind of a character study, inspired and driven by a discussion that happened on the discord, its so tragic, others are there but i didn't want to tag them, theyre so repressed, this is just me being angsty over them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22122025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Say_that/pseuds/Say_that
Summary: For her entire life, Harrowhark has devoted just as much attention to Gideon Nav as she has to her own necromatic studies.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Series: The Locked Tomb and All Its Souls [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658383
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88





	An Immovable Object in Motion

Since she was conceived, Harrowhark Nonagesimus has considered Gideon Nav to be the greatest thorn to have ever had the pleasure of embedding itself in her side. 

A should-be-specter, beautiful even when, by all rights, she should have had to suffer through the awful, gangly mess that both Harrowhark and Ortus did when it came to puberty, Gideon was a sun trapped within the mausoleum that was the Ninth house. She grew into the harsh tutelage of Aiglamene like it was a kind and loving touch, rather than shouted words and the briefest moments of contact necessary to correct the girl’s form. Ortus did not succeed under the harsh taskmistress the way Gideon did, and it filled Harrowhark with nothing but barely concealed rage and sorrow when she took his oath as her cavalier.

The rage, at least, was directed partly at herself, though, for the fact that her actions were what led to the necessity of their oath coming so soon in life.

But no matter what she and Gideon fought over, no matter what Crux and Aiglamene berated her for after Ortus complained, no matter what her Aunts or the nuns whispered behind their hands, Harrowhark Nonagesimus has always been irrevocably in love with Gideon Nav.

\--

She delights in any attention from Gideon. Whether it is anger, spite, derision, anything that is directed at her from Gideon is a gift that she holds in her heart. Of course, she does not let this become known by anyone. Even when she briefly tries to blame Gideon for her parents’ deaths, she loves her. Loves even the briefest glance that she might receive from her.

It is, as Harrowhark is well aware, so beyond fucked up.

\--

Gideon has skin thicker than steel, skin a deeper brown than dried blood, skin a more lustrous tone than any gold relics in the vault of the Ninth. She is beautiful, a woman who deserved a better planet than the Ninth, a better house than the Ninth, a better Reverend Family than the Ninth had to offer, better care and tutelage than what they gave her.

They have given her so, so little. She has had _everything_ taken from her. It is not fair by any measure of the word, and Harrowhark knows this, but she will never give up her one friend. Her one enemy.

Her first love. Her wanted-for cavalier. Ortus and his mother can barely conceal the fear they feel for both Harrowhark and for Gideon, for the entire Ninth. It is a disgrace to their house that he is her cavalier primary, and if Harrowhark thought it would actually tie Gideon more closely to her, then she would dispose of both of them in a heartbeat and remake the oath with someone she actually wants.

But Gideon does not love her. At this rate, Gideon will never love her. But as Harrowhark foils yet another attempt at escape, at freedom, at the Cohort, she knows that she will do anything to keep her at the Ninth. Even if it means that she will never be anything but a villain to Gideon. She has never learned to let go of the things that she loves.

\--

She knows as soon as she tells Crux and Aiglamene the plan that Crux will do more than she has asked of him. He does not suffer traitors, does not suffer disloyalty. He has barely suffered Gideon for the few years that she has been present in his life, and even that is only because Aiglamene was training her so well.

But that doesn’t matter. Because she finally has the trump card. She has finally reached the move that will let her put Gideon in checkmate, that will tie her to Harrowhark so tightly, so closely, that she will not be able to leave.

Crux may not suffer traitors, but Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter, Heir to the Ninth House, will _not_ be left behind again.

\--

Gideon is a master of the sword, even one that she has only had for a few months. Her mind and her body are a phenomenon that Harrowhark could spend a myriad of myriads studying. Their budding...trust is a flower sprouting from land that Harrowhark long ago wrote off as dead and salted. Her eyes, when she takes off those ridiculous glasses, are like coins, like gold and copper spun together, like the brilliance of the sun as it sets on the ocean here at Canaan House. Her own personal windows into Gideon Nav’s soul, that shine with every smirk and laugh and horrible horrible joke that her cavalier tells her. All of these wondrous things, these blessed things, these terribly lovely _lively_ things. And she nearly loses them all.

_”Probably because you asked...That’s all I ever demanded.”_

She nearly loses everything that has ever mattered, and what good would becoming a lyctor be without a Gideon Nav to be her Cavalier Primary. She nearly loses everything, and Gideon isn’t even mad at her, because this time, she asked. If Harrowhark had known that this was all it took, she would still have never done it until now, because by God, the Necrolord Prime, it is a catastrophic power that she holds in her hands and on the tip of her tongue now.

All she has to do is ask.

\--

To be embraced by Gideon Nav is to die and be reborn and die again. It is heartbreaking. It is breathtaking. It makes her want to weep. To kill. To destroy this friendship so that no one will ever know what makes her weak. It makes her want to run away from Canaan House with Gideon and hide where no one will ever find them.

But more than anything else, it makes her want to keep hugging her. Makes Harrowhark want to toss caution to the wind and kiss her, hold her, _take_ her.

Instead she swears and oath she thought she would never get to have properly.

One flesh. One end.

Gideon Nav. Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Cavalier Primary. Necromancer. Sun. Moon. An unstoppable force and an immovable object.

Only one woman in the world can toy with her this way. And that woman insists on calling her such stupid, inane things as “my corpescular queen”, “gloom mistress”, “penumbral lady”, and “Harrow”.

How dare she. But she does dare, and Harrowhark is unable to stop it because that would mean lying to Gideon. And she will not do that. Never again.

\--

Gideon Nav.

\--

Gideon the Ninth.

\--

Her Gideon.

\--

They are beautiful and resplendent together. Their minds mesh and bodies flow, together and around each other, in perfect symphony. She is a necromancer in her prime, but she has only ever been in her prime, young as she is, and Gideon has only ever been content with winning and nothing else. They are a well constructed skeleton, a perfect machine, an unstoppable force that has learned to slow for the immovable object, even as it pushes it forward all the same. A total eclipse.

A perfect pair.

And then it all goes wrong.

Then it all goes terribly, terribly wrong. And nothing, nothing can prepare her for Gideon looking at her and saying “For the Ninth!” while her eyes reveal her lie and her mind whispers, so soft that she nearly doesn’t catch the thought,

 _For Harrow_.

\--

Cytherea means nothing to her. Camilla means nothing to her. Ianthe means nothing to her. Coronabeth, wherever she is in Canaan House, means nothing to her. Harrow drops the sword and uses all of her strength to pull Gideon off of the spike she threw herself on. Carefully, reverently, she lays her cavalier down on the ground, then covers Gideon’s body with her own.

She is a pitiful blanket, too small by far. She is sobbing, her heart torn in two, her body wrent, her blood dripping down her face in thick streams. This does not matter. None of it matters. Nothing in all the Houses, in all the worlds, in the entire universe, will ever matter again, because Gideon Nav, Cavalier Primary of the Ninth House, died with a smile on her face.

Harrow screams with the tears, shoulders shaking and hands trembling as she presses her forehead to Gideon’s, as she presses her fingers to every pulse point she can think of, as she finds nothing but skin that is slowly turning cold. She is broken and torn and useless because Gideon the Ninth is dead and she has killed her.

All that she can do is press her lips to Gideon’s and weep until her body collapses on top of Gideon and she succumbs to the sweet nothingness of forced unconscious.

\--

She stares the Emperor in the eye. The Necrolord Prime. Necromancer Divine. God. She stares God in the eye, and she, Harrow, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Heir of the Ninth House, Reverend Daughter, Keeper of the Tomb, asks _only_ for Gideon Nav.

She would do anything, give _anything_ to have Gideon back in her life. Her Griddle. Her cavalier. Her friend. The first and only flower of her house. The sun that somehow made its way into the deep recesses of the Ninth. Her first and only love.

And God looks at her and says no.

Harrow has always thought herself a strong person. But this, more than anything else that has happened to her in the last few years, breaks her. And she cries once more. Swears once more. Makes promises to her house and her God once more.

But when he leaves, when the Emperor lets her have her grief in private, Harrow the First swears to herself and to the Locked Tomb that she will live to see open, that before she dies, she will bring back Gideon the Ninth, because there is no point in a moon without a sun. 

No point in Harrowhark Nonagesimus if there is no Gideon Nav.

\--

Since the moment she was conceived, Harrowhark Nonagesimus has always loved Gideon Nav and has considered herself to be the greatest thorn that has ever had to pleasure of embedding itself in her cavalier’s side.

And she will make _sure_ that her cavalier knows that.

**Author's Note:**

> what's up, I haven't posted in like, years and now it's for a completely different fandom than anything else I've done. anywho, like the tags say, this was inspired by a conversation I had in the discord for GtN and I couldn't stop thinking about it afterwards, so here y'all go. if you see a typo or a grammar mistake and you wanna let me know, feel free to comment below - if you want me to write more about this absolute dumbasses, then leave a kudos and a comment!


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